Chapter 13: Public Land

1. Edward O. Wilson, The Future of Life, 58. A summary of Wilson’s recommendations appears on pages 160–164.

2. Samuel Hays, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency, 41–42, quoted in Joseph R. DesJardins, Environmental Ethics, 48.

3. Gifford Pinchot, The Training of a Forester, 13, quoted in DesJardins, Environmental Ethics, 48.

4. Ibid., 50.

5. DesJardins, Environmental Ethics, 49.

6. Solange Nadeau, Bruce A. Shinkler, and Christina Kakoyannis, “Beyond the Economic Model: Assessing Sustainability in Forest Communities,” in Bruce A. Shindler, Thomas M. Beckley, and Mary Carmel Finley, eds., Two Paths towards Sustainable Forests: Public Values in Canada and the United States, 62.

7. An economic criticism of the Forest Service is that it “subsidizes logging by selling timber at prices way below its timber marketing costs and by providing other subsidies, such as the $811 million in tax breaks that the forest industry was given in 1991.” Norman Myers and Jennifer Kent, Perverse Subsidies, 170.

8. Jack W. Thomas, “Are There Lessons for Canadian Foresters Lurking South of the Border?” Forestry Chronicle 78, no. 3 (2002): 382–387, in Peter N. Duinker, Gary Z. Bull, and Bruce Shindler, “Sustainable Forestry in Canada and the United States: Developments and Prospects,” in Shindler, Beckley, and Finley, Two Paths towards Sustainable Forests, 38.

9. Brent S. Steel and Edward Weber, “Ecosystem Management and Public Opinion in the United States,” in Shindler, Beckley, and Finley, Two Paths towards Sustainable Forests, 78.

10. Ibid., 80. “The ecosystem approach is a strategy for the integrated management of land, water, and living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way. Application of the ecosystem approach will help to reach a balance of the three objectives of the Convention. It is based on the application of appropriate scientific methodologies focused on levels of biological organization which encompass the essential processes, functions, and interactions among organisms and their environment. It recognizes that humans, with their cultural diversity, are an integral component of ecosystems.” At http://www.cbd.int/ecosystem. The Clinton administration expected that the Senate would ratify this treaty, but the opposition was so strong that the convention was never brought to a vote. See “How the Convention on Biodiversity Was Defeated,” http://sovereignty.net/p/land/biotreatystop.htm.

11. Garry Peterson, “Using Ecological Dynamics to Move toward an Adaptive Architecture,” in Charles J. Kibert, Jan Sendzimir, and G. Bradley Guy, eds., Construction Ecology, 139.

12. James Gustave Speth, Red Sky at Morning, 39. Forests in Brazil are being logged to plant sugar cane that will be used to produce ethanol. See Sabrina Vale, “Losing Forests to Fuel Cars,” Washington Post, July 31, 2007, D01, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/30/AR2007073001484.html. In Niger, however, trees are being planted. See Lydia Polygren, “In Niger, Trees and Crops Turn Back the Desert,” New York Times, February 11, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/11/world/africa/11niger.html.

13. William McDonough and Michael Braungart, Cradle to Cradle, 88.

14. For example, “Except for a few isolated patches, the 31 million acres of California forests, indeed all the forests in the Western United States, have been changed in some way by humans.” Peter Fimrite, “Bringing Forests Up to Date,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 29, 2008, W-2, http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/29/BAJ5UNM1N.DTL.

15. Haider Rizvi, “Local Control Saves Forests—Report,” OneWorld.net, March 27, 2008, http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/159182/1. The largest private landowner in California, Sierra Pacific Industries, relies on the active forest management guidelines of the Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI), which represents timber and paper interests. Jonathon Curiel, “Getting Clear with Sierra Pacific Industries,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 29, 2008, W-8, http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/29/BAE7UTPD6.DTL.

16. Forestry Stewardship Council, “FSC’s Case Studies,” http://www.fsc.org/en/about/case_studies. The European version of the FSC is the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) in the UK, http://www.pefc.org/internet/html.

17. Haider Rizvi, “Local Control Saves Forests—Report,” OneWorld.net, March 27, 2008, http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/159182/1.

18. “Northern Spotted Owl,” Endangered (1996), http://www.amnh.org/nationalcenter/Endangered/owl/owl.html.

19. Bruce Babbitt, Cities in the Wilderness: A New Vision of Land Use in America, 61.

20. Clare M. Ryan, “The Ecosystem Experiment in British Columbia and Washington State,” in Shindler, Beckley, and Finley, Two Paths towards Sustainable Forests, 196.

21. “AMA Strategies—Executive Summary,” http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/forest-research/ama/strategy/frmain.shtml.

22. “Press Release: Threatened Ancient Forests Gain Reprieve,” Northwest Ecosystem Alliance (July 24, 1997), http://www.crcwater.org/issues2/gifford072497.html.

23. “Forest Management Plans,” Conservation Northwest,

http://www.conservationnw.org/oldgrowth/forest-management-plans.

24. “Final National Forest Regulations Take Step Backwards,” The Wilderness Society, http://www.wilderness.org/OurIssues/Forests/nfma.cfm.

25. Dan Berman, “Judge Forbids Forest Service from Using 2005 Planning Regs,” E&E News, March 30, 2007, http://www.klamathbasincrisis.org/forestsandlogging/judgeforbidsFS033007.htm.

26. Reed McManus, “Dubya’s Dictionary,” Sierra (September 2004), http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200409/dictionary.asp.

27. Brant Short and Dale C. Hardy-Short, “‘Physicians of the Forest’: A Rhetorical Critique of the Bush Healthy Forest Initiative,” Electronic Green Journal 19 (December 2003), http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4288f8j5.

28. “Forest Guild Analysis of Wildfire Risk Reduction on Federal Lands,” The Forest Guild, http://forestguild.org/fuel_reduction_evaluation.html.

29. “Mountain Top Removal,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountaintop_removal. See John M. Broder, “Rule to Expand Mountaintop Coal Mining,” New York Times, August 23, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/us/23coal.html.

30. “Nature Overrun,” New York Times, January 8, 2008, at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/opinion/08tue1.html. See Felicity Barringer and William Yardley, “Surge in Off-Roading Stirs Dust and Debate in West,” New York Times, December 30, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/us/30lands.html.

31. US Endowment for Forestry and Communities, “News Release (February 3, 2010), http://www.usendowment.org/images/HWHF_Press_Release_draft1_12_10.pdf. The Endowment for Forestry & Communities, Inc. (Endowment) is a not-for-profit corporation established September 21, 2006, at the request of the governments of the United States and Canada in accordance with the terms of the Softwood Lumber Agreement (SLA) between the two countries. The Endowment is one of three entities designated to share in a one-time infusion of funds to support “meritorious initiatives” in the United States. See http://www.usendowment.org/.

32. “Healthy Watershed through a Healthy Forest Initiative,” Virginia Department of Forestry (February 19, 2010), http://www.dof.virginia.gov/press/nr/2010/2010–02–19_forests-faucets.htm.

33. News Release No. 1136, USDA, Forest Service (October 14, 2011), http://www.fs.fed.us/news/2011/releases/10/community.shtml.

34. Two of the best known essays are Robert Elliot, “Faking Nature,” and Eric Katz, “The Big Lie: Human Restoration of Nature,” in Andrew Light and Holmes Rolston III, eds., Environmental Ethics.

35. Andrew Light, “Ecological Restoration and the Culture of Nature: A Pragmatic Perspective,” in Light and Rolston, Environmental Ethics, 399–400.

36. Ibid., 406–409. Restoration, Light concludes, “is an obligation exercised in the interests of forming a positive community with nature and thus is well within the boundaries of a positive, pragmatic environmental philosophy.”

37. Bruce Babbitt, Cities in the Wilderness, 72.

38. Ibid., 73–74.

39. Ibid., 82.

40. Ibid., 24.

41. Marjorie Stoneman Douglas was one of the first to warn about the threats to the Everglades in her 1947 book, The Everglades: Rivers of Grass.

42. Babbitt, Cities in the Wilderness, 34.

43. Environmentalists also had to resort to the courts over several years to force compliance. “The Everglades: A National Gem Worth Protecting,” EarthJustice, http://earthjustice.org/features/ourwork/the-everglades-a-national-gem-worth-protecting.

44. The CERP goal is “to capture fresh water that now flows unused to the ocean and the gulf and redirect it to areas that need it most. The majority of the water will be devoted to environmental restoration, reviving a dying ecosystem. The remaining water will benefit cities and farmers by enhancing water supplies for the south Florida economy.” “About CERP: Brief Overview,” Everglades Restoration, http://www.evergladesplan.org/about/about_cerp_brief.aspx. “In fact, the Everglades Restoration Plan is a kind of blueprint for what a managed planet will look like.” James Trefil, Human Nature, 229.

45. “CERP: The Plan in Depth,” Everglades Restoration, http://www.evergladesplan.org/about/rest_plan_pt_01.aspx.

46. Everglades National Park, http://www.everglades.national-park.com/info.htm#his.

47. Efforts to restore a marshland that purifies Lake Tahoe are also encouraging. Peter Fimrite, “Healing the Lake,” San Francisco Chronicle, September 5, 2007, http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/05/MNLLRLVHU.DTL.

48. John M. Broder, “After Lobbying, Wetlands Rules are Narrowed,” New York Times, July 6, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/06/washington/06wetlands.html.

49. “New EPA Wetland Regulations a Victory for Private Property Owners,” National Center for Policy Analysis (June 6, 2007), http://www.ncpa.org/media/new-epa-wetland-regulations-a-victory-for-private-property-owners.

50. “Clean Water Definition of ‘Waters of the United States’,” EPA, http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/guidance/wetlands/CWAwaters.cfm.

51. “What Makes Rainforests Unique? History, Not Ecology,” Science News, September 23, 2011, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110923102536.htm.

52. Calen May-Tobin, “The Root of the Problem,” Union of Concerned Scientists (Fall 2011): 10–11, http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/forest_solutions/drivers-of-deforestation.html.

53. “Taan Forest Achieves FSC Certification on Haida Gwaii,” Rainforest Alliance, http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/newsroom/news/taan-forest-certification.

54. “Study Shows World Heritage Sites Benefit from Forest Stewardship Council Certification,” Rainforest Alliance (October 25, 2011), http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/newsroom/news/world-heritage-site-study-release.

55. “RAN and the Forest Stewardship Council,” Rainforest Action Network, http://ran.org/ran-and-forest-stewardship-council.

56. “Holding the Line with FSC [reloaded 2010],” Greenpeace Briefer (November 2010), http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/forests/2011/Holding%20the%20Line%20Reloaded%20-%20Nov%202010.pdf.

57. “The Case for a Moratorium on FSC Certification in the Congo Basin,” Greenpeace Briefer (March 2011), http://www.greenpeace.org/international/PageFiles/286078/Congo%20Moratorium%20briefer%20final%20EN.pdf.

58. Glen Barry, “Time to Boycott Rainforest Action Network for Its Primary Rainforest Logging,” EcoEarth.info, May 13, 2011, http://www.ecoearth.info/newsdesk/.

59. Glen Barry, “Today as Rainforest Action Network and Awardee Naomi Klein REVEL, Primary Rainforests Continue to Be Destroyed in Their Names,” Rainforest Portal, October 12, 2011, http://www.rainforestportal.org/issues/2011/10/release_today_as_rainforest_ac.asp.

60. William Laurance, “China’s Appetite for Wood Takes a Heavy Toll on Forests” (November 17, 2011), http://e360.yale.edu/feature/chinas_appetite_for_wood_takes_a_heavy_toll_on_forests/2465/#.

61. David Gilbert, “World Bank and IFC: The Big Bucks behind Indonesia’s Rainforest Destruction,” Rainforest Action Network (June 3, 2010), http://understory.ran.org/2010/06/03/world-bank-and-ifc-big-bucks-behind-indonesias-rainforest-destruction/.

62. Fakhrurradzie Gade, “Prime Indonesian Jungle to Be Cleared for Palm Oil,” Jakarta Post, December 9, 2011, http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/12/09/prime-indonesian-jungle-be-cleared-palm-oil.html. In the past fifty years half of the rainforest in Indonesia has been cut down.

63. APRIL is the acronym for Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings, Ltd.

64. Ministry of Environment & Forests (Government of India), The Official Website of Project Tiger, http://projecttiger.nic.in.

65. Ramachandra Guha, “Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique,” Environmental Ethics 11 (1989): 71–83, in David Schmidtz and Elizabeth Willott, eds., Environmental Ethics, 288.

66. An Indian activist writes: “[E]nvironmental protection per se is of least concern to most of these groups. Their main concern is about the use of the environment and who should benefit from it.” Anil Agarwal, “Human-Nature Interactions in a Third World Country,” The Environmentalist 6, no. 3 (1986): 167, quoted in Ramachandra Guha, “Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique,” Environmental Ethics 11 (1989): 71–83, in Schmidtz and Willott, Environmental Ethics, 291.

67. Samuel Hayes, “From Conservation to Environment: Environmental Politics in the United States since World War Two,” Environmental Review 6 (1982): 21, quoted in Guha, “Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation,” in Schmidtz and Willott, Environmental Ethics, 290.

68. Guha, “Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation,” in Schmidtz and Willott, Environmental Ethics, 290.

69. Ibid., 291.

70. “Both German and Indian environmental traditions allow for a greater integration of ecological concerns with livelihood and work. They also place a greater emphasis on equity and social justice. . . . [And] they have escaped the preoccupation with wilderness preservation so characteristic of American cultural and environmental history.” Ibid., 292.

71. Raymond Bonner, At the Hand of Man: Peril and Hope for Africa’s Wildlife, 8, in David Schmidtz, “When Preservationism Doesn’t Preserve,” Environmental Values 6 (1997): 327–339, in Schmidtz and Willott, Environmental Ethics, 322.

72. Schmidtz, “When Preservationism Doesn’t Preserve,” 323.

73. Ibid., 322.

74. Ibid., 324.

75. Jake Madders, “Living with Wildlife: How CAMPFIRE Communities Conserve Their Natural Resources,” http://freespace.virgin.net/jake.madders/Detailed%20info/living%20with%20wildlife.htm.

76. Raymond Bonner, “At the Hand of Man: Peril and Hope for Africa’s Wildlife,” in Raymond Bonner, At the Hand of Man, 253–278, in Schmidtz and Willott, eds., Environmental Ethics, 315.

77. Ibid., 317.

78. Schmidtz, “When Preservationism Doesn’t Preserve,” 326.

79. “Mismanagement Threatens National Asset—Wildlife,” The Standard, October 30, 2011, http://www.thestandard.co.zw/local/32317-sundayview-mismanagement-threatens-national-asset—wildlife.html.